We are the 99%

Occupy Edmonton is concerned about how corporate interests are
infecting our political institutions, dictating public policy and
decimating the environment. We are also concerned about a system that puts the hunger for profits above the health and well being of all our communities.

We're not control freaks. The method of this madness will hopefully become clear after you read these rules / guidelines. All of these about posting are only here so that we can effectively communicate with people who are members of the page and the wider Occupy community, who help us build mass actions, direct actions, protests, campaigns and other support.

Sticking to these really does make a difference in how well the page communicates over time. We're presently steadily building as of this writing at about 100 new fans a week and want to keep it at least that.

What you *must* first do (by consensus of the FB admins) before posting to http://facebook.com/occupyedmonton is remove the setting that makes you “always post as Occupy Edmonton,” so that you may post as yourself. The default setting is to make you “Always post as Occupy Edmonton when you post on the page.”

You DON’T want this - change it if you know how - and if you don't know how, instructions are to follow.

In general, you should only post as “Occupy Edmonton” if there’s something “official” / urgent to communicate to the entire fan base.

Urgent things are:
— callouts for action / new Occupy initiatives
— countering negative media spin about Occupy (not excessively)
— victories attributed to Occupy
- major actions undertaken by the movement as a whole (ie. port actions)
— camp help requests
- other web pages where *healthy* and *relevant* debate on directions and strategies within Occupy are taking place
- video from local actions
— telling people to vote in opinion polls about Occupy

Routine things we can publish are:
— The week's upcoming meetings (should be done on Mondays). Should also always mention that the OE forum contains the minutes and meeting schedules. So this post can look something like

When you post to Occupy Edmonton AS Occupy Edmonton instead of yourself, you post goes out to ALL fans of the page and shows up in their newsfeed.

What is wrong with that? you might ask. The problem is that if we overload our fans news feeds with Occupy Edmonton stuff, people will remove us from their newsfeed. Once they remove us from the newsfeed, the only way of communicating to our fans is if they then come to visit OE on their own initiative. Facebook does not let you email fans of a page or a group.

Over time, people removing OE from their newsfeed will have a detrimental impact on the movement, even if they stay “fans” of the page. Fewer people will see callouts for camp equipment, fewer will see callouts for action.

Therefore this rule is not to censor anybody, but to keep the movement alive and healthy by not over-posting and setting priorities of what gets posted.

THINGS WE DON'T POST WHEN POSTING AS OE ADMIN.

— "Personal opinion." The definition of personal opinion is a little vague, but generally this means that when posting as OE admins, we don't post editorials about analysis or what we would choose as solutions. We pretty much restrict ourselves to the above topics. Generally OE can be fairly represented by pointing out problems and actions, but as we all do not necessarily agree on either analysis of problems or solutions, it tends to cause tension. However, do feel free to post away "as yourself."

— Stuff about internal schisms / fights / etc. - not what people signed up for, demoralizes everyone not directly part of it. All admins intervening in this should never post as OE Admin (and we should all work to defuse this anyway).

IF YOU MAKE A MISTAKE

No big deal, just go back, copy the post, erase it, and re-post, but re-post as yourself.

HOW TO SHUT OFF ALWAYS POSTING AS OCCUPY EDMONTON

We recommend enabling this setting. On the OE Facebook page, in the upper right hand corner is a button that says EDIT PAGE. Click it, and on the left side, you'll have an option called YOUR SETTINGS. Click that.

Then, UNCHECK the box of "Always comment and post on your page as Occupy Edmonton even when using Facebook as (your name)."

Click "Save changes."

TO SWITCH TO POSTING AS OE ADMIN
Then, to switch to posting as OE Admin, from anywhere on Facebook, click the down arrow in the upper right hand corner of Facebook's pages. Select "Use Facebook as: Occupy Edmonton."

From here, you'll "inhabit" the OE Admin as if it were your Facebook profile. Your name will be replaced with Occupy Edmonton and when you click it you'll get to the OE Facebook page. Your posts will be as "Occupy Edmonton" and your likes and friends will be replaced with the ones we've chosen.

TO SWITCH TO POSTING AS YOURSELF AGAIN
To switch back, just click the upper right hand arrow again and choose Use Facebook as: (yourself)

TROLL POLICY

Obviously, when you are an FB admin, you have the power to remove posts and ban people.

Keep in mind that this is our campaign page, but we want a balance of keeping things fluffy while allowing critical questions to be asked. Maybe we won't win converts with our answers, but having answers rather than a trigger happy delete finger can soften the opposition if not win folks over.

— We turf troll comments and ban "straight-up trolls." Straight up trolls are people who say hateful things like "get a job hippies" or "i hope they turn the firehoses on you."

— "Hostile questioners" and other critics are kept on a case by case basis. People who leave quick or lazy crankily comment on every thread, like they aren't putting much attention into the comments they're making, are borderline trolls and should be turfed after awhile. If they leave comments and never respond to rebuttals in any kind of engaged way, it gets tiresome and drags down the fluffiness of the page, and usually just makes supporters feel bad and frustrated when they come here. Pay attention to:

—— does the negative poster have an accusatory manner that "almost" says things like "get a job," even if they're not saying it?
—— do they use the phrase "you people" or something like it constantly? (Also hostile and aggravating)
—— do they refuse to actually engage what people are saying?
—— do they have a "fake account" profile ? (like, totally locked up, "4chan" style profile image and clearly fake name, etc.)

If you can answer yes to more than 2 or more questions, they're probably trolls and are depleting our energy. They should be deleted. If not, it may be possible, again, to argue with them and have a productive discussion (and if they're a straight up opponent with an intelligent question, an intelligent answer actually helps our visitors and supporters).

Keep in mind that trolls are a little less of a big deal because visitor posts aren't front-facing now. However, trolls often comment on our posts.

Stuff that's racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. should be deleted. If someone has a point of view that's believeably "unintentionally racist" etc. the poster should be engaged.

All engagement with trolls should happen as ourselves not as OE admin.

OTHER STUFF:

1. IF IN DOUBT ASK

If in doubt about how anything works or if something is ok to post, get feedback from other people.

2. PLEASE CHECK IN EVERY NOW AND THEN

We have a Facebook group you should be part of if you are a Facebook admin, it's up here but kept as a "secret" group (ie closed admissions).

3. PLEASE DISCUSS THESE "RULES" IF THEY'RE NOT WORKING FOR YOU

This is an evolving set of guidelines and may change as we change. If something we've agreed as admins to isn't working for you, let's discuss below!